Bureau of Emergency Medical Services

POLARIS Change Logs

August 19, 2009: Version 1.10.0: New features and bugfix

• Implemented improved logic to auto-fill and hide/show data elements based on the responses to other data elements in data entry; implemented ability for Bureau of EMS staff to create and change logic rules on the fly and for agency data managers to activate/deactivate rules that are not activated statewide (new feature)
• Implemented improvement so that elements that appear on more than one page are now editable on all pages on which they appear (new feature)
• Added the ability for the PCR number automatically assigned to a PCR by POLARIS to be modified by the user (new feature)
• Changed the printable PCR to sort vital signs, medications, and procedures in chronological order (new feature)
• Added a reset button to the Search PCRs form to clear the form (new feature)
• Added Disposition as a column in PCR lists (new feature)
• Changed narrative and annotation pop-up windows to place the cursor in the text box when the window is opened (new feature)
• Placed the agency's counties served at the top of the list in Patient's Home County (new feature)
• Added a blank entry to the top of the Crew Member list on the Unit/Times page to make it easier to select the first person on the list as a crew member (new feature)
• On the Data Exchange page, changed the checkbox for "Mark these PCRs as complete" to be checked by default (new feature)
• Implemented a method to reset the login time-out as long as a user is actively typing in the narrative, rather than requiring the user to save the narrative in order to reset the time-out (new feature)
• Changed the auto-tabbing behavior on the Unit Notified Date/Time on the Initial page to skip the year portion of the date/time (new feature)
• Updated the Help page
• Added Clarkston Fire and Rescue Department to Other Agencies in Area
• Corrected problem that prevented a State Data Manager from adding new data elements via the Data Elements page
• Corrected problem on printable PCR whereby for insurance plans the state was displayed as a FIPS code rather than a postal code and the ZIP Code was labeled as "Group" rather than "ZIP Code"
• Corrected problem in Web services updateDEMO operation whereby POLARIS returned a SOAP fault if a personnel record was provided that did not contain the D08 section
• Corrected misspelling of "through" on PCR Search results page in the label, "Showing # through # of # PCRs"
• Improved the way medications, procedures, and protocols are stored in agency demographic data, which eases the ability for new entries to be added to POLARIS's lists and solves issues with updating, exporting, and using demographic data that contains entries that are not on POLARIS's lists

June 10, 2009: Version 1.9.0: New features and bugfix

• Made user administration operations available in Web services interface (new feature)
• Made Web services operations available to hospital Web service clients (new feature)
• Added the NEMSIS common null values as available responses on some elements, per the NEMSIS standard
• Added blank values as available responses on some elements to allow them to not be recorded, per the NEMSIS standard
• Corrected the timeframe that is used when checking the biosurveillance triggers
• Corrected problem in Web services PCR imports and updates whereby occasionally PCRs would be added to the POLARIS's index, but the data would not be saved
• Added Franklin County (ID) to the county lists (new feature)
• Corrected the implementation of Medical Device Data elements that should contain set lists of possible responses
• Corrected problem in Web services PCR search whereby searching by incident city had no effect unless incident street address was also included in the search criteria
• Corrected sporadic innappropriate time-out message upon attempting to save the Injury Matrix page of a PCR
• Corrected problem in Web services demographics update whereby existing demographic data was not deleted when new demographic data was submitted
• Corrected problem in Web services demographics update when processing D08_05 Personnel City that did not contain a FIPS code
• Corrected problem in Web services PCR import and update handling E12_15 Current Medication Dosage with a length of one digit
• Corrected problem in Web services PCR export whereby E21_02 Medical Device Event Name contained the value of E20_12 Position of Patient During Transport
• Corrected problem whereby procedures reported in Prior Aid were not saved
• Added Station State to Demographics data entry
• Some duplicate entries were removed from Other Agencies in Area

April 14, 2009: Version 1.8.0: New features and bugfix

• Created advanced search capability (new feature)
• Increased the time-out on the data exchange page
• Corrected problem in Internet Explorer whereby, in Procedures and Medications, in null-or-specify elements, if a null value was chosen, the "specify" box was disabled on all subsequent medications or procedures.
• Corrected problem whereby the updateDEMO Web service operation had an error when processing a medication that does not exist on POLARIS's medication list
• Made additions and corrections to the procedure list, per January 2009 update in the NEMSIS standard
• Made additions and corrections to the protocol list
• Updated the street address of Bear River Valley Hospital, which moved
• Corrected the definitions of Primary Impression and Secondary Impression
• Changed the sort order of the responses for "Authorization" in Procedures to match that in Medications
• Added the NEMSIS common null values to the list of responses for Procedure Successful
• In Exams, changed the label for "GU" to "Genitourinary"
• Corrected problem whereby some data records contained incorrect pointers to NEMSIS response values for certain elements
• Removed a response with label of "None" from the medication list
• Corrected problem whereby GCS total and RTS total were not saved if "Preview" was used on the Assessments page
• Corrected problem whereby medication dosage units were not retrieved correctly when revisiting the Treatments page
• Improved the labels for the responses for GCS-Motor when the patient's age is unspecified

September 15, 2008: Version 1.7.0: New features and bugfix

• Created amendment logs interface (new feature)
• Enhanced PCR Lists (e.g., Search PCRs) to break search results into multiple pages if they contain more than 50 PCRs; to auto-select the first PCR in the list; and to sort PCRs by in reverse chronological order of the date/time when they were created (new features)
• Enhanced Search PCRs and Data Exchange pages to allow wildcards (* and ?) in text fields (new feature)
• Enhanced behavior of crew member elements in PCR data entry by adding the "Use my last crew" button (new feature) and by making it possible to enter the role and certification level of each crew member if those elements are enabled by the agency
• Corrected problem in disconnected mode PCR to allow At Home Location Date/time to occur prior to Back in Service Date/time
• Corrected problem in printable PCR whereby the name of the procedure was not displayed for some procedures
• Corrected problem in printable PCR whereby the Verbal and Motor GCS components were swapped between Vital Signs set #1 and set #2 or #3
• Initial availability of predefined reports in Analysis Suite

August 4, 2008: Version 1.6.0: New features and bugfix

• Redesigned Vitals, Exams, Medical Device Data, Procedures, Medications, and Insurance Companies in PCR data entry; added the ability to add or remove instances of each without communicating with the server, and added the ability to make a copy of an existing instance (new feature)
• Consolidated Vitals, Medical Device Data, and Exams into a single Assessments page; consolidated Procedures and Medications into a single Treatments page; moved Body Weight and Broselow/Luten Color to Medical History section on Situation page (new feature)
• Redesigned Yearly Statistics, Other Destinations, Stations, Vehicles, and Medical Devices in Demographics data entry (new feature)
• Redesigned Injury Matrix in PCR data entry (new feature)
• Improved User Administration to display a list of all users who currently have access to the agency/hospital (new feature)
• Resolved the following through the redesign work: tab order problems in Injury Matrix, Vitals, Exams, and Insurance Plans; problems auto-calculating GCS and RTS in Vitals; problems displaying and saving GCS components in disconnected mode; problem with losing information from remaining exams when one exam is deleted; moved Stroke Scale from Exams to Vitals
• Changed the behavior of "null-or-specify" elements to not be saved as "Not Applicable" if skipped; instead, they are saved as "Not Recorded" and continue to show "Specify" if revisited in PCR data entry (new feature)
• Improved Multiple Selection List elements to require fewer clicks and offer a simpler, more consistent display layout (new feature); corrected behavior of Multiple Selection List elements in Apple Safari; corrected problem in Disconnected mode whereby responses in Multiple Selection List elements were not being saved; corrected problem saving Advance Directives
• Corrected problem of data not being saved if user was on the General page of Demographics and clicked on the General page again
• Improved validation of data in Vehicle Annual Statistics in Demographics
• Set the GCS score to default to 4/5/6:15 in Vitals (new feature)
• Corrected problem whereby the printable PCR would not display if the PCR was uploaded via XML and contained "-15" (Not Reporting) for certain elements
• Corrected problem whereby responses to Other Agencies at Scene were saved correctly but not retrieved and displayed when revisiting the Situation page in PCR data entry
• Corrected problem whereby if a medication was unselected in Demographics it continued to be offered in PCR data entry
• Corrected spelling of "Personal Flotation Device"
• Corrected SQL injection vulnerability in Web services searchPCR and exportPCR operations
• Corrected problem in Data Exchange whereby no PCRs were exported if an age range was not provided; corrected age range form fields to allow up to three characters
• Corrected error in Web services parsing date/times that did not have a timezone offset
• Corrected problem setting the Incident Date in the PCR index for PCRs uploaded via XML
• Corrected problem in printable PCR whereby Turn-around Delay was mislabeled
• Corrected PCR Number field in search forms to allow up to 32 characters
• Corrected error when leaving Initial page of PCR data entry if City was left blank
• Corrected problem whereby it was not possible to remove a previously recorded response to "Crew ID" in a medication or procedure
• Corrected problem whereby the printable PCR was only showing one insurance plan, even if multiple plans were recorded

May 27, 2008: Version 1.5.0: New features and bugfix

• Made the following improvements to PCR Linkage: tightened criteria used to propose linkage; improved performance of the linkage search; introduced incident-only and patient-only linkage; corrected issues with some elements not being autopopulated when they should have been
• Added a "Preview" button to PCR data entry screens to provide access to the printable version of a PCR while doing data entry (new feature)
• Added option to "include intermediate destinations in search results" for hospital users on the Search PCRs page (new feature)
• Added "destination" (for agency users) and "disposition" (for all users) as criteria that can be selected on the Search PCRs page (new feature)
• Modularized and improved detail in server system logging
• Corrected reporting of APGAR scores on the printable PCR
• Improved performance for searches that include PCR number in the criteria
• Corrected problem in processing imported NEMSIS XML data that is missing <D07_03_0> or <D08_04_0> blocks
• Corrected problem in printable PCR whereby annotations about head injury in the Injury Matrix were not being shown
• Added the following hospitals as destinations: Dixie Regional Medical Center (400 East Campus); St. Mary's Hospital (Grand Junction, CO); Grand Junction (Colorado) Veterans Hospital
• Corrected problem in processing imported NEMSIS XML data that contains an <E12_12_0> block but is missing the <E12_12> element
• In web services searchPCRs operation, corrected erroneous date/time handling in search criteria
• Added NEMSIS common null values as responses to several elements: E08_03 Estimated Initial Responder Time; E08_05 Number of Patients; E08_06 Mass Casualty; E08_07 Location Type; E23_07 Personnel Exposed
• Corrected inconsistent facility code for The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital (TOSH, code 275)
• Corrected saving of NEMSIS common null values for the following elements: E23_02 Potential Registry Candidate; E23_04 Suspected Intentional or Unintentional Disaster
• Corrected autopopulation of location information for the following hospitals: Intermountain Medical Center; Page Hospital; The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital
• Corrected issue wherein E07_36 ICD-9 Code for the Condition Code was not exported correctly in NEMSIS XML exports if there was more than one set of Condition Codes
• Corrected spelling of "amend"
• Corrected issue where, for imported NEMSIS XML data, the patient's home address was not displayed on the printable PCR
• To improve responsiveness to searches, made changes to the PCR index table in the database: changed incidentDate to a date/time type; added destination and disposition (new feature)
• Added Bluffdale Fire Department as an agency and to the list of "Other Agencies in Area" in Demographics (new feature)

March 17, 2008: Version 1.4.2: Minor new features and bugfix

• Added "Not Applicable" response choice to Exams and Sending Facility Medical Record Number
• Changed eye exams to allow "Reactive" as a non-exclusive response choice
• Added the following agencies to "Other Agencies in Area": Daggett County Sheriff Search & Rescue; Ivins City Fire Department; Naples Police Department; Saratoga Springs Fire Department; Utah State Prison; Willard First Responders.
• Corrected the NEMSIS code for "Bites" in Injury Cause
• Corrected the NEMSIS element ID for Mental Status Assessment and State Issuing Driver's License
• Initial availability of "Web Services Clients" section in Data Exchange
• Code optimization: Centralized server-specific configuration parameters for seamless deployment and enhanced monitoring capabilities

October 24, 2007: Version 1.4.1: Minor new features and bugfix

• Improved layout consistency of error and timeout pages, and allowed sessions to be restarted after an error without requiring user to log in again
• Added the following local-option elements: Medical Control Physician; Initial Responder ID; Destination Receiving Person; Names of Non-EMS Services on Scene (new feature)
• Corrected issue in printable PCR wherein some information was missing for certain procedures
• Made the welcome page available to hospital users (new feature)
• Swapped the order of "Save" and "Cancel" buttons in pop-up windows (new feature)
• Added a blank response option to "Agency Certification Level" in the Personnel section of Demographics
• Added the following hospitals: Intermountain Medical Center; Page Hospital; The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital (new feature)
• Added Farmington Fire Department to the list of "Other Agencies in Area" in Demographics
• Added the NEMSIS common null values as response options for "Stroke Scale"
• Corrected the NEMSIS coding of "GMT-07:00 Mountain Time" in "EMS Agency Time Zone" in Demographics
• Improved the order of elements in the Vitals section of PCR data entry (new feature)
• Corrected the spelling of the "CNS/Neuro" response in "Chief Complaint Organ System"
• Changed "Lights and Sirens" to "Lights and/or Sirens" for improved clarity (new feature)
• Corrected a problem with correlating the "EMS Agency Number" element in web-based NEMSIS XML imports
• Added ondansetron (trade name Zofran) to the Medications section in Demographics (new feature)
• Synchronized the medication list in "Prior Aid" with the Medications section in Demographics
• Corrected the spelling of "Fixed Wing (Airplane)" response in "CMS Service Level"
• Corrected the spelling of "Midazolam"
• Corrected the spelling of the label for "Aspirin" in "Prior Aid"

September 12, 2007: Version 1.4.0: New features

• Initial availability of Web services interface
• Initial availability of Analysis Suite, providing multidimensional analysis tool
• Enhanced Search PCRs to allow searching by more criteria
• Optimized searches on certain criteria to be faster
• Searching by patient name and/or agency now works for Hospital Users
• Added "Export" button to search results, which provides a NEMSIS XML file download of the selected PCR
• Enhanced Data Exchange to allow use of more criteria in selecting data to export
• In Data Exchange, added options to mark imports as new or updated, and as complete or incomplete
• In Data Exchange, added ability for Data Managers to upload/download their agency's demographic information
• In Data Exchange, replaced the use of ZIP files for handling multiple PCRs with correct handling of multiple PCRs within a single NEMSIS XML file
• Added Salt Lake County Sheriff Search and Rescue as an agency

July 24, 2007: Version 1.3.0: New features and bugfix

• Fixed the local-option element "Medical/Surgical History" to accept ICD-9 codes, per the NEMSIS standard
• Added "Medical History Narrative" as a local-option NEMSIS research element (new feature)
• Changed time validation to allow "Transfer to Other Agency" to occur after "Left Scene" (but still before "Back in Service" or "At Home Location") (new feature)
• Fixed "APGAR Score" to allow data entry
• For agencies serving only Weber County, the incident county did not default to "Weber" in PCR data entry; now it does
• Corrected data validation problem occuring on the Unit/Times page if the user removed one's self from the crew
• Corrected problems with searching by patient name or transporting agency when logged in as a hospital user
• Changed epidemiological (bioterrorism) trigger checking to run more efficiently and asynchronously
• Corrected problem on Analysis page for hospitals with an apostrophe in their name
• Added fentanyl to the medication list
• Added Classic Life Guard as an agency and Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County (Wyoming) as a hospital
• Added several non-Utah counties bordering Utah to be selected as incident, home, and destination counties (new feature)
• Changed the disconnected mode PCR to record as the creator the user who logged in to save the PCR, rather than the user who originally downloaded the blank PCR form (new feature)
• Corrected PCR Import to properly recognize files with an all-caps ".XML" extension as XML files
• The element "Alcohol/Drug Use Indicators" was missing the option "None"
• Widened date/time fields so that they render better in certian web browsers, including Apple Safari and Palm Blazer
• Corrected the printable PCR to display Chief Complaint Duration Unit
• Corrected tab order problems on the billng page of PCR data entry when certain insurance plan-related elements are enabled
• Corrected PCR linkage to copy insurance information from the source PCR
• Corrected PCR Import to record the unit call sign correctly in the database index table
• Corrected PCR Export problem whereby certain procedures were being exported incorrectly
• Fixed Add/Remove-style elements to work correctly in more browsers, including Apple Safari
• Changed time validation to allow "Back in Service" to be up to four hours in the future (new feature)
• On PCR data entry, set the year of "Unit Notified Date" to the current year
• Allowed vitals, medication, and procedure times to be after "Date/Time Initial Responder Arrived On Scene" even if they are before "Unit Arrived at Patient" (new feature)
• Added the NEMSIS Common Null values as responses for "GCS Qualifier," "Scene Zone Number," and "Suspected Intentional or Unintentional Disaster"
• Added Sunnyside Ambulance and Honeyville Fire Dept as responses to "Other Agencies in Area"
• Made "Statewide Statistics for Utah" available to all useres on the Analysis page
• Added a feature to disable the "Begin PCR" or "Begin PCR (disconnected mode)" after it is clicked, to prevent double-clicking (new feature)
• Changed the "archived/expired" policy to 60 days after the PCR was started rather than 90 days after the incident
• After doing a PCR search by patient name and then deleting a PCR, POLARIS would re-execute the search without the patient name as criteria
• Changed the spelling of "extravasion" to the more common spelling of "extravasation" (new feature)
• Corrected alphabetical ordering of nitroglycerin and oral glucose in the Medication page in Demographics
• Corrected elements pertaining to US states to use Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) codes rather than postal abbreviations
• Added "Successful" to the printable PCR in the Procedure section
• Corrected "Condition Code Modifier" to comply with the current version of the NEMSIS standard
• Restricted "Unit Call Sign" and "Vehicle Number" elements to the more restrictive of two conflicting validation rules in the NEMSIS standard
• Corrected NEMSIS coding of "Paramedic" response in demographic elements pertaining to certification levels
• Corrected problem on printable PCR whereby medications were not displayed if more than 10 were recorded in a PCR

March 16, 2007: Version 1.2.1: Minor new features

• On the printable PCR, some local-option elements that were supposed to be added in version 1.1.0 were still not being shown
• On the printable PCR, added insurance plan information to the Miscellaneous section, if provided on a report
• On the printable PCR, added injury matrix annotations in the Injury Matrix section

February 28, 2007: Version 1.2.0: New features and bugfix

• Corrected issue in disconnected mode PCR wherein one of the Exit buttons was not fully functional, causing POLARIS to not ask whether or not the PCR was complete and to not save some of the information about the location of the destination if the destination was a hospital
• If the patient's birthdate is the same as the incident date, POLARIS will change the patient's age units to hours and allow the user to enter the number of hours
• Added procedures to the procedure list that were contained in the NEMSIS standard but omitted in POLARIS
• Changed PCR linkage behavior to not copy the incident number from the source PCR into the current PCR unless the incident number was left blank in the current PCR (new feature)
• Change validation of times to allow medications and procedures to occur after arrival at the destination (new feature)
• Corrected NEMSIS XML imports/exports to translate weight and temperature measurements to/from metric units per the NEMSIS standard
• Corrected NEMSIS XML exports to correctly handle cases where a medication or procedure time was not reported
• Corrected local-option element "Other Agencies at Scene" to provide a list generated from "Other Agencies in Area"
• Added the NEMSIS common null values as options on the local-option element "Patient ID Band/Tag Number"
• On the printable PCR, corrected mislabeling of the "CMS Service Level" element
• Changed the logout behavior so that POLARIS does not attempt to close the browser (new feature)
• On the printable PCR, changed the way odometer readings are presented and added calculations of total miles and billable miles (new feature)
• Corrected local-option element "Vehicle Dispatch Zone Number" to show a list of zones from agency demographics
• Corrected display of "Respiratory Effort" element to match the NEMSIS standard
• Corrected local-option element "Type of Suspected Exposure" display all of the correct choices and save the chosen value(s) correctly
• Corrected local-option element "Other Services at Scene" to display and save data correctly
• Corrected issue in the printable PCR wherein "No procedures reported" would be shown even when procedures had been reported
• Corrected issue in the printable PCR wherein "No vitals reported" would be shown even when vitals had been reported
• Corrected the NEMSIS coding for local-option element "Secondary Complaint Duration Units"
• Corrected mispellings of "extremities" on the printable PCR
• Correct issue wherein POLARIS would incorrectly calculate the age of some patients that were between 11 and 12 months old
• Changed the printable PCR to display "lb" after patient weight (new feature)
• Added auto-tabbing on date entry fields on "Search PCRs" and "Data Exchange" pages (new feature)
• Updated the POLARIS "Help" page (new feature)
• Added links to related resources/systems on the POLARIS Welcome page (new feature)

January 4, 2007: Version 1.1.0: New features and bugfix

• For Patient Home County, created a selection list of Utah counties to choose from (choose one of the null values for out-of-state counties)
• Enhanced printable PCR to show local-option elements that were reported on a call in the "Miscellaneous" section (new feature)
• Corrected issue in PCRs with call type of "Neither Medical or Trauma" wherein pages with multicolumn sections would not render and a server error would occur
• Corrected NEMSIS coding of E20_17 Type of Destination from version 2.2 to version 2.2.1 standard
• Corrected NEMSIS coding of E06_06 Patient Home County to use FIPS code instead of text, and converted existing records to correct coding
• Added numbers in front of the values in the Glasgow Coma Score component elements to allow keyboard-based selection of values by typing the numbers (new feature)
• Removed incorrect value of "9: Not Assessed" from Glasgow Coma Score verbal component
• Added some basic statistics to the "Analysis" page for use while the full Analysis Suite is being developed (new feature)
• Corrected issue in printable PCR that caused a blank web page to appear instead of the PCR on certain reports
• Added variance medications Adenosine and Haloperidol to the medication list for selection in agency demographics

November 6, 2006: Version 1.0.1: Minor bugfix

• For some injury matrix regions, red highlighting did not appear after creating an annotation
• Corrected auto-population of location information for McKay-Dee Hospital and Ogden Regional Hospital
• Corrected incorrect NEMSIS coding of some values for E10_01 Cause of Injury and added missing "Motorcycle Accident" value
• Corrected mispelling of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in one location
• Added Cassia Regional Medical Center and Oneida County Hospital as destination hospitals and as POLARIS user organizations
• Corrected issue in disconnected mode PCR wherein page changes would cease to work if a value was present for Patient Weight on the Exams page